Salton Sea

This month at ARTastic the challenge is to use "Chinamen's Beach" by Ken Done as inspiration.

As an additional challenge you are to include palm trees, a photo taken at the beach, and 2-3 beach embellishments.

I almost made another pair of pages from our trip to Rosie's Dog Beach but I felt like changing things up and wanted to use some pictures from my family's trip to Salton Sea when I was a child. I was going to do a 9 photo layout on one page but I really wanted to tell the story of one of my first memories which is from that day.

The patterned paper guided me into doing more of a collage style. I typed and printed my story onto pink paper, cut it into strips, and added a little blue ink. I added white brads and a seashell sticker to the crown to give it an ocean princess feeling, as well as button brads to the boy's suit, a clothing tag with a palm tree, and an epoxy sand sticker.

I chose to cover the boy's eyes since my story is about not being watched.

Here's the story if you care to read it:
One of my earliest memories is of this day -- the day I almost drowned.

I saw a man dive head first into Salton Sea and watched him swim away effortlessly. I wanted to do that too.

Everyone's mission seemed to be to keep me away from the water that day, so I waited until they were distracted from organizing the coolers and lunches. I jumped in like the man. I remember the dissonant sound of the water...tasting salt water...popping above the water and seeing my family back on the beach, still distracted. I only remember feeling calm.

I can't remember anything else but my mom says they had to give me CPR. Is this why I struggled with a fear of swimming in deep water for so many years?